first-time home owner, business owner, parent...

DIY Oversized Magazine Rack or Pillow Basket

I have a bit of a clutter problem currently happening in my house and I. Hate. Clutter. I like stuff. I have lots of knick knacks and pretties, tons of photos, art and prints. I like throw pillows and have waaaaay too many books, but everything has a place. In the few months since we’ve moved into our new house a few events have occurred to cause the clutter; 1) The birth of our amazing twin baby girls; 2) The renovations and general making-it-our-own-home projects that come with a new home purchase {like the DIY built-in bookcase I’m currently building}; and 3) Our DIY wedding!! All of this amounts to a whole lotta clutter. I’ve been slowly digging out and coming up with small solutions here and now to deal with the clutter.

My most recent mini project was to remedy a clutter problem caused by nursing my twin girls. I’ve managed to get a really good system down that allows me to tandem feed {a life saver}, but this system requires a lot of pillows. Sometimes I’ll feed them in our upstairs bedroom, but for the most part the nursing happens in the living room and that has caused an overload of pillows on the living room couch. Now, like I said before. I love pillows, but my contemporary couch can only handle so many throw pillows and my tandem-nursing solution requires bed-sized euro pillows. I tried to make them look like they belonged there, but euro pillows just don’t work on a small couch.

Luckily, I have this little useless nook beside my couch. The little closet houses pipes and air vents, so we don’t use it and only need to access it if there’s a problem. As you can see, I’ve already taken to hiding some of the girls toys back there. I started looking for a giant floor basket that could hold euro pillows, but there aren’t many out there and the few available are pushing the $150 mark. So, I decided to come up with a DIY plan instead. After seeing a few DIY magazine holders on Pinterest, I decided that a wood and fabric basket was the way to go. So. I drew up some plans to create, what has essentially become an oversized magazine holder using some leftover MDF, wood dowels and fabric.

First I cut out my MDF pieces. These are 20 x 16 x 20. Then I used a roll of masking tape and a yard stick to create a more interesting looking leg and cut that out using my jigsaw. I used a spade drill bit to drill my holes for the dowels. The size of your drill bit will depend on the size of your dowels. I used a 1/2″. The dowels on the bottom of the rack are centered and the dowels at the top of the rack are sitting just an inch from the outside edge. Attach the bottom dowels using wood glue {attach only the bottom dowels} and let sit overnight to dry.

For my fabric, I used this piece that I’d originally purchased to upholster my coffee table with. I changed my mind on that project, so I’ve been waiting to use this stuff. I love it! I cut my fabric so that it would loop onto the dowels on the top rack and under the dowels on the bottom rack. I’m a terrible seamstress, but luckily you can’t really see my jagged crooked lines. Slide a dowel through the loop on one side of your fabric and attach the dowel one side of your racks frame. Make sure the patterned side is facing out. Then pull the fabric underneath the bottom dowels and up around the other side. Slide the other end through your dowels and attach with wood glue. Let the glue set overnight before using.

And there you have it. A simple, quick and much more palatable storage solution for what has been dubbed the “twin nursing pillow fort”. Hey who needs a My Brest Friend Original Pillow when you have a bed full of euro pillows!

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